


nfwmb

by mountainsbeyondmountains



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Cheerleaders, F/M, Greasers, Sneaking Around, riverdale vibes but less insane, title from hozier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-26
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-07-18 01:01:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 17,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16107500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mountainsbeyondmountains/pseuds/mountainsbeyondmountains
Summary: “Only you would bring paperwork into a friends with benefits situation,” he remembers saying."Jon, we're not friends," Sansa had replied.





	1. Chapter 1

From the very beginning, she had insisted on certain rules. Sansa wasn’t the type to let anything slip through the cracks. If he were being honest, Jon had found it irritating. “Only you would bring paperwork into a friends with benefits situation,” he remembers saying. He’d been laying on her bed, which was ten times nicer than his own at home. He’d thought that a person could never have nightmares in a bed like this.

“Jon, we’re not friends,” Sansa had replied. She didn’t look up from her scribbling. She wrote the rules down on the back of an old history exam (which she’d gotten an A on, of course), then elegantly signed the bottom. She passed the page over to him.

Jon read over the list: _no touching in public, no dates, no jealousy, no staying the night._ Four rules seemed easy enough to follow- as if he’d really want to escort her to homecoming, or freeze his ass off on the bleachers while watching her prance around during halftime at a football game, or whatever it was Sansa would consider to be a real date. He had better things to do. He signed without a second thought.

That had been three months ago. And if Jon is still being honest, he’d never expected what this was- _a friends without benefits without actually being friends situation_ \- to last this long. He’d anticipated it would fizzle out before Labor Day. But where is he now, a few days before Halloween? Leaning against her locker, waiting for the final bell to ring. Waiting for Sansa to get out of chemistry.

Jon isn’t sure when he accidentally memorized her class schedule. He wonders if Sansa marks down what they do in her overstuffed day planner. She’s a meticulous girl, after all. _3:15 pm- prom planning committee. 4:00 pm- cheerleading practice. 5:30 pm- sex in the back of Jon Snow’s car._ All the i’s dotted with little hearts.

But this time Jon actually has a legitimate excuse to speak with her. Something else for Sansa to add to her planner: _6:15 pm- investigate the murder of my father._

Not that the police had ruled it a murder. Merely a tragic accident. A dark night, a slick road.

The bell rings, and the halls of Winterfell High swell with students eager to leave. But even the hastiest part for Sansa Stark to pass by. It’s like that with princesses, of course.

Jon watches her, and sees the exact moment Sansa notices him leaning against her locker. The moment of frisson when the match is lit behind her blue eyes. But her voice is cool, of course, when she greets him. “Jon Snow.” She has the perfect tone of polite surprise. _Whatever does my brother’s deadbeat friend have to say to me?_

She doesn’t look at him, gaze surveying the hallway around them instead. “Making sure nobody important sees us talking?” Jon asks.

“What are you _doing_ here?”

“Arya wants us to stake-out the old mill tonight. She thinks the Freys and the Boltons might be meeting.”

Jon can already see the wheels turning in Sansa’s mind, trying to decipher the motive, the method to the madness. “What do you think-“ she begins to ask, but then she shakes her head and chastises herself. “We’ll talk about it later. Pick me up at the house later, all right? You know, you could've just texted me about this.”

Jon doesn’t reply, because his only answer would be: _But I wanted to see you._ How would Sansa react if he said that? Maybe she would melt, kiss him softer and sweeter than summer rain right there in the hallway. Damn whoever sees. More likely she would freeze, smile brittle with pity, tell him that they’re taken things too far. And because Jon learned at an early age to take what he can get, he only says, “You’ve got something,” reaches out, brushes a pencil shaving off her pink sweater.

Sansa flinches. “Remember the rules,” she whispers. It isn’t until she pulls back that Jon realizes her face had been only slender inches from his.

“Of course,” Jon says flatly. “The rules.” He can tell Sansa is on the verge of saying something else, but he doesn’t want to hear it. He’s gone before she can end it, because she’s sure to end it, any day now, and all he can do is delay the inevitable. He’s striding through the hallways toward the autumn sunlight outside, where all the foliage is the color of Sansa’s hair.

Everyone in the hallway is quick to get out of his way, of course, because it’s like that with monsters.


	2. Chapter 2

Later, in the locker room, it’s the usual pre-practice chaos. Beth needs a tampon because her period came unexpectedly early, while Jeyne’s freaking out because _her_ period is late, Alys left her somehow left her practice uniform at home, and Wylla is bitching that _if Coach makes us run a mile today, I swear to God, I’m quitting._ Normally, Sansa would be in the thick of it- asking Beth what size she needed, consoling Jeyne, letting Alys borrow the spare uniform set she always keeps in her bag next to her emergency variety box of tampons, and telling Wylla she’ll do no such thing. But today Sansa couldn’t care less.

Marked bills exchanging hands, someone tampering with the brakes of her father’s car, the signs proclaiming _Roose Bolton for Mayor_ which now litter almost every lawn in Winterfell. It’s like Sansa’s head is a record player, and the needle’s out of place. The same macabre thoughts cycle over and over again, occasionally interspersed with the memory of Jon’s face just before he’d left.

His jaw tight as a steel trap. His gaze averted, because he just couldn’t stand to look at her, could he? _Of course. The rules._ Why had she brought up the stupid rules? Sansa regret even writing them in the first place. 

“Myranda, could you braid my hair?” Sansa asks. She’s been trying for the last ten minutes, but she keeps losing her place and making a tangled mess of things.

“Sure,” Myranda Royce says, taking a seat behind Sansa on the bench.

“You’re such a sweetheart,” Sansa replies, only to regret it not ten seconds later when Myranda purrs:

“So did my eyes deceive me, or did I see you talking to _Jon Snow_ earlier?”

“Maybe.”

“I didn’t know you two were friends.”

“We’re not.” Sansa isn’t Jon’s girlfriend, isn’t his friend, isn’t his friend-with-benefits. She’s… what is she to him? A ghost of his ex-girlfriend, who had also had red hair? A distraction? A warm body?

“What were you two talking about, then? It looked kind of intense.”

“I don’t even remember.”

“All right, then,” Myranda says. Her fingers tighten around Sansa’s hair, and Sansa understands the silent message: _I don’t believe you._ A part of Sansa is tempted to ignore the sugarcoated malice. That’s what Jon would do. _Who cares what Myranda Royce thinks?_

Sansa does, unfortunately.

Mercifully, Margaery comes to the rescue. She slams her locker closed and spins around to face them. “God, Myranda, don’t we have anything less boring to talk about?”

Myranda’s hackles rise. She lets go of Sansa’s hair. “I hear Jon Snow’s part of a gang,” she says, loud and clear for the whole locker room to hear. “We all know who his father is. Targaryens can’t be trusted.”

“He wears a lot of black,” Beth chimes in. “I bet he’s got one of those leather jackets with the dragon on the back. Or a dragon tattoo.”

“I’ve seen him ride a motorcycle.”

“He lives alone in that trailer. His mother’s dead."

It’s stupid to open her mouth, but Sansa has to defend him. “Just because his father’s in a gang doesn’t mean Jon is.” And he hasn’t got any tattoos- Sansa has inspected extremely thoroughly.

“And how would you know? You said you weren’t friends,” Myranda shoots back. When Sansa just glares at her, she twists the knife. “He’d be cute, if he took a bath. Bit of rough, you know? If you don’t want him, Sansa, maybe I’ll have him.”

“What makes you think he’d want you?” Sansa laughs.

Myranda’s face has just contorted in ugly shock when Margaery says, “ _Enough_.” It isn’t loud, but Margaery doesn’t need to be loud to intimidating. Everyone quietens down, because this is the head cheerleader speaking.

“I want everyone out on the field stretching in two minutes. Understood?” Margaery orders. She looks each girl in the face, daring anyone to disobey. They all begin to leave the locker room, murmuring to themselves. Sansa’s at the end of the pack when Margaery says, “Sansa, hang back a second.”

There’s pure unselfish concern in the other girl’s eyes. “Are you okay?” she asks in a low voice. “You seem… Your head’s in the clouds.”

“There’s a lot going on at home,” Sansa says.

“You know you can talk to me about anything.”

Maybe, under normal circumstances, Sansa would confide in her. _Well, Margaery, I’ve been secretly hooking up with Jon Snow for the past three months. Yes,_ ** _that_** _Jon Snow- my brother’s best friend, son of a legendary Targaryen gang leader, a little under six feet tall with a chip on his shoulder. How did we get together? Well, we’ve spending a lot of time together lately. Robb and Arya are convinced that the Freys and the Boltons teamed up to kill our father and take control of Winterfell. You really get to know a person when you’re secretly investigating a possible murder. Anyway, so I’ve been doing that, as well cheerleading, prom planning committee, debate team, and maintaining a 4.0 GPA. Also, I haven’t been sleeping, because I keep having nightmares about my father’s aforementioned possible murder. So, yeah, there’s a lot going on at home._

God, Sansa had to laugh, because if she didn’t laugh about it, she would start crying and never stop.

Margaery doesn’t press her any further, just reaches out and takes hold of the end of Sansa’s aborted braid. “Myranda Royce is such an incorrigible twat,” she says, unravelling her braid and expertly twining it back together again. Then she gestures to her handiwork in the mirror. “See? Perfect.”

“Perfect,” Sansa echoes.


	3. Chapter 3

Jon parks behind the thicket of trees which has grown wild and overgrown in the decades since the mill closed. When he and Sansa get out of the car, they can see through the branches to observe whatever might happen at the mill, while they themselves remain concealed.

Though Jon would never let anyone else say such a thing, he can admit to himself that his car is a jalopy. He takes care of it as best he can, but it’s a blight in a gated community like Winterfell, and fits right in someplace like Dreadfort. Dreadfort is cracked sidewalks, flickering streetlights, foreclosed properties with spray paint facades. When the kids go trick-or-treating this weekend, they won’t be knocking on any doors in this neighborhood.

Jon looks sideways at Sansa, sitting next to him on the hood of his dilapidated car. She hugs her knees to her chest, clearly shivering in her light coat. She doesn’t belong someplace like this.

“Arya’s contact said the meeting is supposed to be at ten,” Jon tells her. When she doesn’t reply, he keeps talking, “The Frey kid she’s cat fishing must be some special breed of idiot. Who tells someone online about their family’s shady criminal activity?”

Sansa doesn’t laugh. Jon tries not to care, but her silence is salt in an old wound. He’s reminded of how she used to treat him before this renegade investigation started. Before they signed that goddamned contract, before the first time and the countless times afterward, before that humid afternoon back in August when she kissed him in a house still filled with all the flowers everyone sent after Ned’s death. Sansa never hated him, not like her mother did. Catelyn never hid that she didn’t trust Rhaegar Targaryen’s son. But Sansa never felt that strongly. She never cared enough to hate him.

Sometimes, her callousness hurt worse than her mother’s cruelty.

Jon considers reaching out and touching her on the shoulder when he asks, “Sansa, are you okay?” But then he decides not to.

“I’m fine,” she replies, which Jon knows she would say even if she were literally on fire.

“Are you really?”

“Yeah. Cheerleading was… awful, but I’m fine now.”

“What happened?”

“You don’t care,” Sansa dismisses.

“Yes, I do care. What happened?”

“Typical petty backstabbing. I shouldn’t have let it get under my skin.”

“Why don’t you quit?” Jon asks. When Sansa laughs, he says, “I’m serious.”

“I can’t. I made a commitment. People have expectations of me.”

“All I’m saying is that you’re Sansa Stark, and if people don’t realize how special you are, you don’t owe them anything.”

She turns to look at him. The gleam of her eyes is the brightest thing in this inky night. Jon’s heart trips- did he go too far, did he cross a line, will she end it now? He waits for her verdict, but then Sansa seizes on something else entirely. “Someone’s here,” she whispers, pointing at headlights in the old mill parking lot.

Jon peers through the branches. Two figures exit the vehicle and open the trunk. They take out a large bundle, wrapped in some material like tarp or plastic. Jon’s stomach feels sick as he realizes that whatever they’re trying to hide is the rough size and shape of a body.

They drag it to the edge of the river which once powered the mill, and unceremoniously dispose of their burden. The two men don’t speak until they’re walking back to the car.

“Ramsay,” the first man says. “Are you sure this is a good idea? I mean, they’re bound to find it.”

Jon recognizes his voice- he’s unmistakably one of the Frey cousins. But the second man, Ramsay, is a stranger.

“That’s exactly what we’re planning on. When this hits the papers, it’ll only help my father’s campaign. As long as you wore gloves, you don’t need to worry. The police aren’t going to look too hard, and we’re the last people anyone will ever suspect.”

“I guess you’re right,” the Frey cousin acknowledges. The rest of their conversation is cut off as they get back in their car and drive away.

“That was no regular meeting,” Sansa says when the glowing red eyes of their taillights are out of sight.

“They were getting rid of a _body_. We should go to the police.”

“No, we can’t trust the police right now. Didn’t you hear? That man, Ramsay, he said they wouldn’t look too hard. Have you ever heard of anybody named Ramsay?”

Jon shakes his head. “He said that when they find the body, it’ll help his father’s campaign. He has to mean Roose.”

“Roose Bolton only has one son. No way did _Domeric Bolton_ just dump a body in the river. He’s the only decent one in that whole family. No, we have to find out who this Ramsay person is.”

After what they’ve just seen, everything seems darker, and colder. The night has thoroughly sunk its teeth into Jon’s flesh. “Let’s get out of here,” he suggests. Sansa is quick to agree.

By the time they’re safely out of Dreadfort, Jon’s formulated a tenuous plan. He spits the words out all at once, like they were blood in his mouth. “I could ask my father if he knows Ramsay.”

Even though Jon keeps his eyes on the road, he can _feel_ Sansa looking at him. “Jon, you hate your dad. When’s the last time you even spoke to him?”

“Six months ago, more or less.” Jon remembers Rhaegar’s parting words: _You’ll come back around. You think it’s so easy to escape?_

He hates to prove his father right.

“You don’t have to go see him,” Sansa says. “We’ll find some other way-“

“My father knows the underworld better than anyone- hell, my father _is_ the underworld, Sansa. Ned Stark treated me better than Rhaegar Targaryen ever did, and I have a responsibility to help find out the truth, to avenge his murder, through whatever means necessary. So if I need to go talk to the Targaryens, I’ll do it,” Jon swears.

“I don’t want you to get hurt,” Sansa whispers. Jon wants to etch the words in stone, press them like dried flowers between the pages of a book for safekeeping, find some way to this proof: _she does care, at least a little._

“Nothing’s going to happen to me.”

Sansa leans over and kisses Jon on the cheek. The warmth of it blooms long after she pulls away. “You’re not like him, you know that? You’re good, and you’re selfless, and you’re brave, and you’re nothing like him,” she says.

The moment suddenly feels significant, like she just touched a sword to both his shoulders while he knelt before her. It’s too much. Jon turns on the radio, just because he’s suddenly afraid Sansa can hear his crashing heartbeat. He can see the lights of a burger joint up ahead. He asks, “Are you hungry?”

 


	4. Chapter 4

Jon holds the door open for Sansa when they enter the diner, just like she’s always wished all the incorrigible boys of her past would do. But this isn’t a date. It can’t be. Are they breaking the second rule? Sansa supposes she could just ask Jon if this is a date. But what if he says yes? Or even worse, but what if he says no?

Now they’re seated in the cracked leather seats of a booth. Jon devours a quarter-pounder, Sansa dips fries in a milkshake. She looks at Jon’s hand on the table halfway between the both of them, just begging to be held. She listens with pricked ears for the clamor of the bell on the door announcing new arrivals. 

“You have such a sweet tooth,” Jon says, watching her trail another fry through the shake and pop it in her mouth.

“Well, you’re a carnivore,” Sansa retorts. “You practically inhaled that burger.”

“I was hungry! And it was a good burger. That, on the other hand-“ Jon gestures toward her food. “That’s blasphemy. That can’t possibly taste good.”

“Yes, it does. Do you want some?”

Jon starts to say, “Not if you’re going to ruin-“ but he stops when Sansa dips her index into the shake and smirks at him. His mouth is warm, and maybe she’s evil, but it’s just so much _fun_ , and doesn’t she deserve one decent thing in her life?

“Good?” she asks.

“Pretty good. But I can think of something better,” Jon answers, looking at her in a way that has her crossing her legs under the table. Sansa supposes that this is their slightly twisted method of flirting. But their first date is taking place at a greasy spoon after they just witnessed the coverup of a murder.Everything about them being together is slightly twisted.

Something has been nagging Sansa ever since they left the mill. A ragged thread, a pebble in her shoe, something in need of fixing. She speaks slowly, not quite sure where her words are leading. “So we have proof that the Boltons and the Freys are capable of murder. We already suspected that. Arya’s mechanic friend-“

“Gendry,” Jon supplies.

“Yes, Gendry said that the brakes of Dad’s car had been tampered with, yet that not’s in the police report. So we can assume that the cops are in Bolton’s pocket. We know Roose is ambitious. He’s certainly throwing all he’s got into this campaign to replace Dad as mayor. We know through Arya’s contact that the Freys are helping him with the more… unsavory aspects of the race. The Freys run drugs across the river, everyone knows that. Bolton’s probably promised to turn a blind eye when he’s elected in return for their assistance.”

“It all makes sense.”

“It does,” Sansa says. “But I just have the weirdest feeling that we’re not looking at the whole picture. There’s a missing piece to the puzzle. Maybe someone close to Dad betrayed him?”

Jon looks at her, keeps looking at her until Sansa snaps, a little irritably, “What is it?”

“You’re so hot when you’re being a genius,” Jon tells her.

Sansa’s ensuing laughter is a glowing fire in her chest, and the words are ready at her lips- _You know what? Screw the rules. I want to be with you, and I hope you want to be with me._ Sansa is torn between kissing him and carving out her heart and placing it on the table for Jon to discard or devour.

Her hand moves across the table. She laces her fingers with his, and squeezes tight for a moment, like his hold on her is the only thing keeping her from plummeting off of a cliff. Jon is surprised, but he doesn’t pull away. His thumb rubs back and forth across her skin in a steady, soothing motion. “Sansa, I’ve been thinking-“

The bell above the door chimes, and a bracing wind assaults them as someone enters the diner. Not just anyone. Sansa recognizes the man, and she can tell from the way he looks at her that he recognizes her too. _What’s Petyr Baelish doing here?_

She snatches her hand back from Jon. The cold Baelish let in lingers. _Did he see us?_

 “Who’s that?” Jon asks. All emotion has been crushed from his voice. Once again, he’s looking at anything _but_ Sansa. He watches Baelish order a small black coffee at the counter. 

“My dad’s former lawyer. Old friend of my mother’s. He’s been at the house all the time since the accident.”

“Old friend of your mother’s,” Jon repeats. “All right. I see.”

The cold has seeped inside Sansa’s skin, making it hard to speak, to think, to breathe. “Jon, I’m sorry-“

“Sansa!” Baelish’s tone is bright, but he casts a shadow over the booth. “I hope I’m not interrupting a lover’s quarrel.”

“You’re not,” Jon mutters. Baelish appraises him blatantly, and his lips curl in a snake oil smile as he apparently comes to a satisfying conclusion. Jon doesn’t notice- he’s too busy glowering at the stains on the diner walls. A protective feeling flares in Sansa. She’s seen how Baelish has invaded her home like black mold in the months since her father’s death- his lips always at her mother’s ears, his hand drifting lower and lower down her mother’s back. Catelyn may refuse to see Petyr as anything other than a concerned old friend, but Sansa refuses to trust the man.

Not that there’s any reason for him to suspect that. She smiles like there’s no one she’d rather see. “Mr. Baelish. What a pleasant surprise.”

“I was about to say that same thing. Does your mother know you’re out at this hour, Sansa?”

“She’s well aware, thank you.”

“You can’t blame me for worrying. After your father’s unfortunate passing, I find myself wanting to… take you under my wing, so to speak.”

“How paternal,” Jon scoffs. Baelish turns toward him and asks:

“Jon Targaryen, if I’m not mistaken?”

“You are mistaken, actually. This is Jon Snow. An old family friend,” Sansa corrects. “It’s was lovely to see you, Mr. Baelish, but I’m afraid you were right when you said it was very late. We should be going.”

“Do you need a ride home?” Baelish is quick to inquire. Sansa suppresses a shudder.

Jon cuts in. “She doesn’t.”

Sansa leaves the diner as fast as her legs can carry her. When she turns in the parking lot to look back, Baelish is staring at them through the window. She can’t make out his expression; his eyes are obscured by shadows and reflections on the glass.

The whole ride home, Jon doesn’t say a word. He drives recklessly, running red lights and treating stop signs like gentle suggestions. Sansa makes knots of her hands in her lap and bites her tongue until Jon parks in front of her house. He keeps the engine running signaling no intention to walk her safely to the front door, or to even a long goodbye. But Sansa can’t end the night like this. “It wasn’t what it looked like.”

“Then what was it?” When she has no answer for him, Jon sighs. “I can’t do this anymore, Sansa. I can’t be with someone who’s so obviously… ashamed of me.”

 _I’m not ashamed of you._ That’s Sansa’s first thought. But she doesn’t say it aloud. Because what has she ever done to show Jon the opposite? She kisses him in the shadows, fucks him behind locked doors, leaves bruises where no one will see them the next day. She proves Jon right every day, and he’s damn near a martyr for putting up as long as he has. “You deserve better,” she tells him.

Jon flinches. “You’re not… That’s all you have to say?”

“Yes. You’re right. You deserve better, Jon. Thank you for the ride home.” Sansa exits the car without another word, and doesn’t let herself cry until she sees Jon’s taillights recede entirely into the night. 


	5. Chapter 5

The next morning, Jon’s alarm clock screeches at the usual time. One arm snakes out from under the covers and reaches blindly toward the sound. He knocks the alarm clock off the bedside table and it lands on the bedroom floor with a sickening smash. Jon supposes he’ll have to buy another one, but at least the racket has stopped. He rolls over and falls back asleep, because he’s not going to school today.

He’ll drive across town to Dragonstone Bar instead, and ask his father about Ramsay. No use getting up early for that.

He’s _not_ skipping school because he doesn’t want to see Sansa. He’s not. What’s the worst she could do to him if he went? Ignore him? She’s spent the last three months doing that.

Jon grabs some terrible black coffee at the gas station, and takes the long way to Dragonstone because he doesn’t want to drive past the diner where Sansa dipped her fries in her milkshake and held his hand only to recoil like it burned her when her mother’s _old friend_ walked in. Catelyn always looked at Jon like he was something the cat dragged in. Petyr Baelish looked at Sansa like he wanted to eat her up and lick the plate when he was done.

It’s long past noon when Jon arrives at Dragonstone. The scarlet neon light out front buzzes on and off in the unsteady rhythm of a dying man’s heartbeat. The windows are purposefully grimy- looking from a distance, it’s hard to see what’s happening inside. When Jon was younger, his mother would sometimes bring him here when she wasn’t able to leave him at the Starks’ house. His mother would open the windows and chain-smoke, something she only did when nervous, as she drove across town. But she’d try to smile before giving him a peck on the top of the head and telling him to _sit still and wait for me, I’ll be gone for just a minute._ Then she’d leave Jon with the doors locked in the Dragonstone parking lot. It was never just a minute, and he’d end up unbuckling his seatbelt in order to turn around and try and catch a glimpse of his mother inside the bar.

Sometimes his mother would come back crying, cursing Jon’s father and _all those damn Targaryens, every last one of them._ Other times she’d return with a thick stack of bills and they’d go out to the movies. Those were always the best days. But the worst days were when Lyanna didn’t come back alone.

“Just let me help you, Lyanna,” Rhaegar might say.

“You want to help me? Pay your goddamn child support- get out of my way!”

“Listen to me, I want to be there for you and Jon-“

“I don’t need your help!”

“Why are you so _stubborn_?” Rhaegar would ask, catching up to Lyanna and taking a tight hold of one of her wrists. Sometimes she would let him kiss her in the stuttering red light. Other times she would slap him and spit, “You ruined my life!”

Jon couldn’t remember how old he was when he realized that meant that _he_ had also ruined his mother’s life. She wouldn’t have to work long hours, or go without dinner, or beg for money from Rhaegar if he hadn’t been born. 

He wonders what his mother would think of him now, asking a Targaryen for help. 

When Jon steps inside the bar, the music doesn’t stop. No, the country song about the good old days keeps growling, but everything else stops. All the patrons- the Targaryens and their affiliates who happen to be hanging around that afternoon- put down their drinks, stop stories mid-sentence, ignore their games of pool and darts to stare at him. At first Jon is met with blank hostility- _some stranger’s got a lot of nerve coming here-_ but then they recognize him as the boss’s son. They examine him with naked distrust and curiosity.

A girl with bleached-blond hair and a tapestry of tattoos peeking out from under her flannel stops polishing a shot glass and asks, “Is that my baby brother?”

“Rhaenys?”

The girl nods. Jon remembers Rhaenys as a eleven-year-old with dark pigtails and a fondness for cats. But the last time he saw his half-sister had been during one of Rhaegar’s few attempts at family bonding. They’d gone to the county fair, and Aegon had thrown up on Jon after too many rides on a rollercoaster called “Baelerion the Dread.”

“It _is_ you,” she greets him. Her smile, at least, hasn’t changed. “Home at last, huh? Let’s catch up. What’s your poison?” She gestures to the bar.

“Thanks, Rhaenys, that’d be great, but I’d actually like to talk to…” Jon can’t bring himself to say _Dad._ “I’d like to talk to Rhaegar for a minute, if you don’t mind. Is he around?”

“Yeah. He’s upstairs, last door on the left.” Jon thanks her, but before he makes it up the stairs, Rhaenys calls out, “Heard you’ve been running around with the Starks. Did you get tired of never being enough?”

“How do you know that?” Jon isn’t totally sure what he means: how does she know who he considers to be a friend? How does she know that, despite growing up together, he never does feel like one of them?

“We keep an eye on our own,” she replies. As Jon continues up the stairs and down the hall, he looks at the photographs and memorabilia on the walls. They show generations of Targaryens, eyes like twilight and hair like moonlight. Are these supposed to be his people?

He knocks on the last door on the left. A voice, unmistakably Rhaegar’s, calls out, “Who’s there?”

“Jon. Um, Jon Snow.”

The door swings open with startling enthusiasm. Rhaegar’s a little worse for wear since the last time Jon saw him, but he’s smiling that same brilliant smile, the one Rhaenys inherited. A stranger would think Jon has come home from a war from the way Rhaegar tries to embrace him. “Son! Great to see you!”

Jon steps back. He won’t fall for the same tricks twice. “I’m not here to join, so don’t even start. I just want information.”

“Not even a hello? Throw me a bone, Jon, it’s been a while. A lot’s happened.” Rhaegar sits down behind the desk, and Jon uneasily sits in the other chair. His father asks, “How are you doing? How have the Starks been holding up? Terrible what happened to their father. Just horrible.”

“The Starks are fine,” Jon says.

“How’s Sansa?”

It takes all of Jon’s self-control not to flinch. Under the desk, so his father can’t see, he flexes a fist over and over again. Rhaenys’ words echo- _we keep an eye on our own._ How much do they know? Are they keeping an eye on Sansa? He wants her as far from this world as she can get. “I barely even know Sansa,”Jon says.

“Come on, you used to be best of friends with all the Starks except her, and whenever I used to mention her name, you’d blush red as stop sign. Still got a crush on her?”

“Never did.”

“We Targaryen men have a way with women, you know. Don’t underestimate yourself, Jon.”

Jon is plenty familiar with his father’s _way with women._ Brusquely, he says, “I’m not here to talk about girls. Do you know anything about someone called Ramsay?”

Rhaegar’s smile sours. He glances at the windows and the doors. “Where did you hear that name?” he demands.

“The Starks think the Boltons had something to do with their father’s death, so I’ve been helping them figure it out in my spare time. The other night, Sa- I was down by the old mill and I saw a Frey cousin and this called Ramsay dumping a body.They said it would help Bolton’s campaign. I thought you might know something about it.”

“This is the last thing I thought you’d come to see me about,” Rhaegar says. “I don’t get involved with Roose Bolton’s political aspirations, and he doesn’t interfere with what I do. The Freys are no good, of course, but they’re a bunch of idiots. I’m not worried about them. But if Ramsay is mixed up in this, Jon, you need to stay out of it. I’ve heard nasty rumors, and this isn’t your fight.”

But it’s Robb’s fight, and Arya’s fight, and Sansa’s fight, so it may as well be Jon’s fight. “What kind of nasty rumors?”

“Ramsay’s a killer. Not like I’m a killer. I don’t enjoy it, I don’t do it for fun. Ramsay does. God, what he did to Donella Hornwood… Makes me sick to my stomach. If Bolton has hired him, he means business.”

There’s something wrong, some detail that’s slipped Jon’s mind. He wishes Sansa was here. She’s good at remembering the little things. “Do you think Ramsay could have killed Ned Stark?” Jon asks.

“He’s capable of it, sure. You said you saw him dumping a body at the mill?” Rhaegar searches the papers on his desk, finds something, and slaps it down in front of Jon. It’s today’s edition of the _Winterfell Chronicle._ The headline screams, SON OF MAYORAL CANDIDATE SLAUGHTERED.

Jon skims the article: _body identified as Domeric Bolton… multiple gunshot wounds… foul play suspected._ “That’s horrible,” he says. He remembers Sansa’s words from last night. _He’s the only decent on in that whole family._ Was that why they killed him?

“Stay out of this. I don’t want them to find your body in the river,” Rhaegar warns. Jon has never seen his father so unnerved. But he’s in too entangled in this to pull away now. It’s like Rhaegar himself said when Jon told him he wanted no part in the Targaryen family business. _You think it’s so easy to escape?_

So Jon doesn’t say anything to his father. He doesn’t want to make any more promises he won’t keep. He stands up, ready to go.

“Wait a second,” Rhaegar tells him. He gets up and searches a cabinet, pulls out a black bundle and tosses it. Jon catches it instinctively. It’s a mass of black leather. He shakes it out and reveals that it’s a leather jacket, just size, with the Targaryen dragon insignia embroidered on the back.

“It’ll fit you like a dream,” his father says.

“I don’t want this.” Jon tries to hand it back, but Rhaegar won’t accept it.

“I want you to have it. You think you can just saunter in here demanding information? Information comes with a price, and this is the price. You take the jacket.”

“I already told you, I’m not joining-“

“I’m not asking you to join!” Rhaegar’s easy going demeanor cracks. For a moment, Jon glimpses the fire and blood, the iron beneath the velvet. Another moment passes, and the facade is perfect again. Rhaegar smiles like it doesn’t cost him anything. “I want you to join, son, of course I want you to join. You’re clever, you’re loyal. You’re just what we need. And when you get tired of living in Robb Stark’s shadow, we’ll be waiting. So try on the jacket, why don’t you? Is that too much to ask?”

Jon doesn’t say goodbye. As he passes through the bar, Rhaenys calls after him, “You owe me a drink, Jon Snow!”

Targaryens always think the entire world owes them something. Jon slams the door shut so hard, he’s surprised the glass doesn’t shatter.


	6. Chapter 6

The next day, Jon isn’t in school.

It isn’t like him. He knows that everybody expects him to fail, or drop out, or knock somebody up, so he always does the opposite. It’s one of the things Sansa loves best about him. No one could ever accuse Jon Snow of not trying his hardest.

Maybe it’s vain of her to think that he skipped today because he didn’t want to see her. Heaven knows Sansa can’t blame him for never wanting to see her again. In fact, she can empathize with the feeling. If she could, she would slip out of herself like a snake sheds its old skin and she would become a different girl- smarter, kinder, _better._

God, she would never even spare him a smile when they crossed paths in the hallways. No wonder he’d thought she was ashamed of him.

When the final bell rings, Sansa feeds Margaery a lie about killer cramps and how sorry she is to miss cheer practice. It’s not too hard to summon a convincingly wretched expression. Margaery’s sympathy only makes things worse. She gives Sansa a hug and strict instructions to go home and curl up in bed with a heating pad.

But Sansa doesn’t go home. She walks in the opposite direction, into the slightly seedier section of Winterfell. It’s not nearly as bad as Dreadfort, but if her mother ever found out she’d come here alone, she'd skin Sansa alive. She keeps her spine straight and her stride long as she ignores the catcalls and makes her way to the address she’d found online: Petyr Baelish’s law office.

Sansa doesn’t have to wait very long at all before Baelish tells his secretary to send her in. “Be careful in there,” the woman murmurs when Sansa passes her desk. Sansa can’t help but notice that the secretary’s hair is the same shade of red as her own.

When she steps inside the office, Baelish immediately asks her to shut the door. Sansa is reticent, but she obliges. She needs to be pliant and charming. She needs to loosen Baelish’s silver tongue, because the sooner she gets the information she needs, the sooner she can leave and never come back.

Baelish greets her warmly. “Sansa. It’s lovely to see you, as always. Is everything well at home? How is Catelyn?”

“She’s doing the best she can, considering. I know she appreciates how helpful you’ve been these last few months.”

“It’s the least I can do.”

Sansa doesn’t want to look directly at Baelish, so she focuses her attention elsewhere. His desk is immaculate and devoid of personal effects, except for one framed photograph. Sansa remembers seeing the same picture in one of her mother’s old scrapbooks. It was taken when Catelyn was no more than seventeen, the same age Sansa is now. It shows her with one arm around Petyr and one arm around her sister Lysa. Or, she does in the copy of the photo that she chose to keep. In Petyr’s copy, Lysa has been cropped out.

Sansa swallows her uneasiness and says, “Mr. Baelish, I hope you meant what you said last night at the dinner. About taking me under your wing.”

“Of course I meant it. I would never lie to you, Sansa.”

“That’s reassuring to hear. I’m so flattered that you’ve taken an interest in me. You see, I’ve always found the law to be a fascinating field.”

“Really?” Baelish leans toward her. His expression is the same as the one his teenage self wears in the photograph: hungry. “You know, lately I’ve been tossing around the idea of hiring a summer intern.”

“That sounds like an amazing opportunity.”

“We’d work together quite closely. It would be a serious commitment, Sansa. You’d have to spend a lot of hours in this office. I’m afraid there probably won’t be much time left over for late nights at the diner. But can I tell you something in confidence?”

“Of course,” she breathes.

“I have it on good authority that I’ll soon be working quite closely with the mayor’s office.”

“The mayor’s office? Mr. Baelish-“

“Call me Petyr.”

“Petyr, I saw the papers this morning. What happened to Domeric Bolton is just ghastly. To think that Roose has lost his only son,” Sansa sighs.

Baelish eagerly snaps up the bait. “It’s a tragedy. Roose is polling better than ever, of course. Nothing to drum up sympathy like the death of a child. Still, it is a tragedy. You’re wrong when you say Domeric was Roose’s only son, though.”

“He wasn’t?”

“Around twenty years ago, Roose had a brief affair which resulted in the birth of a child. It’s a well-kept secret, but it’s my business to know secrets. Roose didn’t shirk his financial duties, but the boy was raised in another town, with a different last name. Father and son only reunited quite recently, as far as I’m aware. But it won’t surprise me if Ramsay replaces Domeric, standing by Roose’s side, cutting ribbons, shaking the rights hands, representing the bright future of Winterfell.”

“You said his name is Ramsay?” Sansa asks. The conversation she and Jon had overheard last night echoes in her mind. 

_Ramsay, are you sure this is a good idea?_

_When this hits the papers, it’ll only help my father’s campaign._

“Ramsay Bolton,” Baelish confirms.

“My father always said you knew everything about everyone. He was right,” Sansa says. And even though she promised to be a better person mere hours ago, she delights in seeing Baelish’s smug grin lose its luster at the mention of Ned Stark. “Well, hopefully when I see you again, it’ll be under happier circumstances, Mr. Baelish. Winterfell used to be such a safe place to live. It’s a shame what’s happened.”

“It _is_ a shame,” Baelish agrees. His eyes follow Sansa as she stands up to leave, and she finds herself wishing she’d worn a longer skirt. “You will give me a call, won’t you, Sansa? About the internship? Or you could drop by the office any time.”

“Of course,” she lies, already halfway out the door. The sun is already sinking fast when Sansa steps outside again. The autumn chills nips at her heels as she walks. It’ll be dark by the time she gets home.

Her first instinct is to call Jon and tell him what she’s just learned. Ramsay is Bolton’s son and likely successor. _Roose is polling better than ever._ The _Chronicle_ had said Domeric’s death was likely a murder. Could Roose be responsible? Could anyone be so cold-blooded? Sansa shivers. Walking alone as the shadows lengthen, she longs to hear Jon’s voice, to try and unravel the mystery with him.

But she can’t call him. She won’t call him. He probably wouldn’t even pick up anyway.

Sansa wraps her coat tighter around herself, and picks up her pace. Once again, she can’t help thinking that something isn’t quite right. Because as much as things are fitting into place to create a horrifying picture, there’s still that damn missing piece.

Her father always said that Petyr Baelish knew everything about everyone. He’d called Baelish clever, cunning, calculating. But he’d never said anything of this in a particularly admiring way, and Sansa had always suspected that though Ned respected the man, he didn’t like him. Not at all.

Sansa had shut the door and smiled, had asked the right questions and had played dumb when she needed to. She knows Baelish wants her, and that desire can cloud a man’s judgement. But this afternoon, he’d been eating out of a seventeen-year-old girl’s hand. He hadn’t seemed clever, cunning, or calculating- just desperate. The kind of man who was pathetic enough to alter a harmless childhood photograph in an attempt to fabricate a happier past.

 _Be careful in there_ , Baelish’s secretary had told her.

Not too long ago, Sansa had been naive enough to believe that she could go toe to toe with a man like Baelish and win. She’d thought anyone could be manipulated by a short skirt and a sweet smile. Now she knows better. She got what she wanted from him, but the victory is hollow, because Sansa can’t shake the feeling that _that was too easy._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Halloween...


	7. Chapter 7

**ROBB**

Some people are so oblivious.

Robb Stark likes to think that not much escapes his notice. And when facts fail, his intuition is never wrong. If anyone wanted proof of his near-omniscience, they could just look at the investigation. They’re _this close_ to proving that Roose Bolton is responsible for Ned Stark’s murder, as well as his own son Domeric’s death.

Of course, Arya has been the one who established the lead with the Frey kid, and Jon and Sansa did a lot of the legwork with the investigation’s most recent discoveries, but Robb is the _leader._ What’s an army without its general?

Robb takes pride in knowing that he’s an unusually observant person, but not everyone is as gifted. Theon Greyjoy, for instance, is as sensitive and perceptive as a rock.

“Why are you being such a little bitch?” Theon asks Jon. He leans forward- of course he isn’t wearing a seatbelt- to get a better look at Jon, who’s sitting shotgun. Robb takes his eyes off the road to glance at them. While Snow’s good at keeping a poker face, Robb knows him too well for Jon to keep any secrets. He can tell that Greyjoy is one snarky comment away from getting punched.

Robb supposes he could try to diffuse the situation. But it’s more fun to watch Greyjoy needle Jon.

“Listen, Snow, I’m doing you a _favor_ inviting you. How many people invite you to parties, honestly?”

“Thank you for your generosity, Theon.”

“So you’re coming?”

“No.”

“Why not? I swear, you’re like an old woman. Do you spend your nights knitting and watching BBC? My parties are always amazing. It’s downright insulting that you don’t want to come.”

“Last time I went to one of your parties, you threw up on my jeans and I had to run from the cops in my boxers, Greyjoy.”

“But you had a good time!”

Robb interrupts their dumb argument. “Theon. Is this the right exit?”

Theon says that it is, and moments later, Robb pulls into the gas station parking lot. Normally he wouldn’t drive all the way out to Molestown, but Greyjoy insists that he never gets carded here.

“I’m not coming tonight,” Snow reiterates as Theon gets out of the car.

“Yes, you are.”

“I don’t even have a costume!” Jon shouts. Greyjoy flips him the bird as he walks away.

Robb waits until Theon is fully out of sight to say, “You know, you really should come.”

“Did you not hear the part about running from the cops in my boxers?”

“Jon, I was _there_ when that happened. I still think you should come.”

“Don’t we need to work on the investigation?”

“It’s Halloween. It would seem really suspicious if we weren’t out being normal teenagers for the night. And besides, we’ve been busting our asses over this for months. We deserve a night off.”

“Well, if you want to sit around and get shit faced while Roose Bolton walks free-“

Now Robb has to resist the urge to punch Jon. “He was _my_ father. Not yours. Don’t try to make me feel guilty.”

Jon sighs. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. Besides, I know why you’re so stressed. I know what you’ve been hiding.”

Jon’s face leeches bone-white as he sits up straight. One hand drifts toward the door handle. “I’m not hiding anything.”

Robb laughs. It’s funny that Jon thinks he’s capable of concealing anything. “Calm down. You’ve been in a rotten mood because you haven’t gotten laid since Ygritte dumped you.”

“She didn’t- I don’t need- why- it was a mutual decision _,_ for your information,” Jon sputters.

“Whatever. Listen, the entire cheerleading squad is going to be there tonight.”

“Really? All of them?”

“All of them. And they’re going to be dressed in Halloween costumes.”

“Is, um, Sansa coming?”

“Well, yeah, I guess,” Robb says. “She better go dressed as a septa, though. And not a sexy septa. A regular one.”

Jon nods. “I’ll come. I’ll probably hate it and leave. But I’ll come.”

Robb grins. “Snow will be there tonight,” he informs Greyjoy, who comes back with enough liquor to drown everyone who matters at Winterfell High. After Theon stashes the bottles in the trunk, he sits in the back and tosses a black wad of fabric in Jon’s face.

“I wish people would stop doing that,” Jon mumbles. Robb has no idea what he means by that. Jon unfolds Theon’s present to reveal it’s a t-shirt bought at the gas station. There’s a tasteless design of wolves howling at the moon on the chest.

Robb says, “That is a hideous shirt.”

“Shut up, it cost me seven dollars,” Theon says. “It’s Jon’s costume. He’s the big bad wolf.”

“Tonight is going to be a disaster,” Jon declares.

**MARGAERY**

“You’re coming, and that’s final,” Margaery says in her bitchiest voice, the one that won her the coveted position of head cheerleader. She even stops rifling through her closet to turn around and properly glare at Sansa.

But Sansa’s never been one to be so easily intimidated. She beat Margaery to win homecoming queen, after all. She flops back on the bed and closes her eyes. “I’m really not feeling well.”

“Drinking alcohol will make you feel better.”

“I’d rather just stay home and help my mom hand out candy to the trick-or-treaters. Maybe watch a scary movie.”

“You don’t even like Halloween movies! You started crying during the opening credits of _Texas Chainsaw Massacre._ ”

“Listen, Stark, I told Theon that the entire cheerleading squad will be there, and I refuse to go back on my word.” Margaery sits next to Sansa on the bed. “Besides, I know you’ve been working on your costume since Labor Day.”

“More like Fourth of July,” Sansa admits.

“Are you really going to put all that hard work into an outfit and then _not_ wear it? Plus, you look scorching hot in it.”

“I really do,” Sansa sighs. She sits up with her familiar posture- as if she’s balancing a book, or a crown, on her head. “All right. I’ll come.”

*

Margaery’s at the punch bowl, trying to figure out what exactly Theon put in this noxious mixture, when someone grabs her by the arm. Margaery spins around and only decides not to break the nose of whoever had the _audacity_ when she realizes that it’s Robb Stark.

“What is my little sister wearing?” he demands.

“Arya’s dressed as the chick from _Kill Bill._ Do you know what’s in this punch?”

“Not Arya- what is Sansa wearing?”

“Stop frothing at the mouth, Robb. She’s Little Red Riding Hood.”

“Doesn’t Little Red Riding Hood get _eaten_ in the fairytale?”

Margaery looks over to where Sansa is surrounded by fawning boys. “That’s kind of the point, Robb.”

He sloshes a large ladle of the mystery punch into a solo cup. “I don’t like this,” he mutters after downing the drink. “I don’t like this at all.”

“Cry me a river,” Margaery tells him before walking over to Sansa, who, despite her earlier protestations, seems to be having a _very_ good time speaking with Cley Cerwyn. Or at least, she’s having a good time until Arya comes over and greets them with: “Have you guys seen what Jon’s wearing?”

Sansa nearly drops her drink. “Jon’s here?”

“Yeah.” Arya points to a couch in the corner of the room, where Jon is seated next to some girl with honey-colored hair. Margaery doesn’t recognize her, which is strange, because the girl _definitely_ looks like someone she would pay attention to. Jon seems to be paying attention too. He doesn’t look nearly as brooding as usual.

“Who’s he talking to?” Margaery asks.

“Her name’s Val. Robb wants to set them up. I actually really like her. She spent the summer hiking the Appalachian Trail. Isn’t that cool?”

“ _Super_ cool,” Margaery purrs.

“I didn’t know you guys knew Jon Snow,” Cley Cerwyn interjects.

“He’s a family friend,” Sansa explains.

Cley asks with genuine curiosity, “Isn’t he part of a gang?”

“No, he’s not,” Sansa says.

“But look at his _shirt_ ,” Arya says, and Margaery obeys. This prompts her to say:

“That’s the ugliest shirt I’ve ever seen.”

“I know!” Arya giggles. “Theon said it’s supposed to be a wolf. Apparently Jon refuses to wear a real costume, because he refuses to have fun. But you should take a picture with him, Sansa. He’s a wolf, and you’re Little Red Riding Hood. You’re matching.”

“No, we’re not.”

“Yes, you are!”

“No, we’re not. Besides, he’s busy talking to Val,” Sansa says. Then she takes Cley by the hand says, “We’re going to go dance.”

“We are?” Cley asks, looking like all his dreams just came true. He and Sansa disappear into the crowd, which is writhing around like a snake with its head cut off.

Margaery keeps looking at Val. She decides it would only be polite to go introduce herself.

**ARYA**

Arya knows that it’s an awful habit, but she can’t help it. She loves to eavesdrop, and parties are the perfect place to learn some future blackmail material. She’s already inspected all the medicine cabinets and discovered that Theon’s father, Balon- who nobody has ever actually _seen_ \- apparently really does exist, and has erectile dysfunction. A little while later, she saw Robb break some kind of glass art piece which looked _very_ expensive, and watched him bury the evidence in the yard. She also noticed Val and Margaery sneaking off to some spare bedroom, but they were hardly being very subtle, so it’s not much of a secret.

When Arya sees Jon and Sansa sitting next to each other on the couch, it’s a sight so unusual that she just _has_ to duck behind a well-placed houseplant in order to listen. She knows Jon and Sansa have been forced to spend a lot of time together lately because of the investigation, but usually they’d never be caught dead together at a party. Maybe they’re discussing their new leads. They’d need to be quiet if they’re talking about that, which would explain why they’re sitting so close to each other.

Arya listens.

“Take it _off,_ ” Sansa is saying.

“So you want me to take my shirt off,” Jon replies. Arya wonders if she heard him wrong. He almost sounded flirtatious. But Jon couldn’t flirt if his life depended on it.

“Shut up. You can wear my cape instead.”

“Oh, _you_ want to take _your_ clothes off. I get it.”

“You’re cocky when you’re drunk.”

“And you’re bossy when you’re drunk.”

“Earlier, Arya was joking the we were wearing a matching costume.”

“So what?”

“ _So what?_ Stop pretending you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

What a waste of time- there was never a conversation less worthy of being eavesdropped on. Jon and Sansa are just bickering, same as always. They’re like an old married couple, except they can’t stand each other. The only thing that they have in common, Arya reflects, is that they’re both extremely boring individuals. She can say this because she loves both of them: neither of them would ever do anything as interesting as keep a secret.

**THEON**

What a weird night.

First of all, Theon had severely miscalculated the ratio of vodka to cranberry juice he needed to put in the mystery punch, and now he is _sloshed._ He keeps walking into things. But maybe that’s because he’s wearing an eye patch. Theon rips the thing off- dressing up as a pirate had been a bad idea, anyway. He’d thought the cheerleaders would like it, but they’d just laughed at him.

Around midnight, he’d definitely heard somebody smash something that had _sounded_ expensive. Probably something his dad had brought back from a business trip. Goddamnit. Theon will deal with that in the morning.

Theon just wants to go to bed and try to stave off the savage hangover that he knows is waiting to pounce, but every soft surface in the house already has an unconscious body on it. At least, Theon hopes they’re all just unconscious. Even his own bed as been commandeered by Margaery Tyrell and some blonde girl.

Theon decides to try his dad’s study- there’s a couch in there that hopefully nobody’s taken yet. In the hallway outside the study, a bright wad of scarlet fabric someone dropped on the floor catches Theon’s eye. He picks it up and realizes it’s the cape from Sansa’s costume. Robb would kill him if he ever said it, but Theon has to admit that Sansa had looked great. He wonders how it is a girl like that is single.

 _Maybe she’s not anymore,_ Theon thinks when he notices that there’s another piece of clothing lying a few feet away from where he found the cape. A man’s t-shirt. Dark. Theon picks it up, and promptly drops it again when he recognizes the design.

_No way…_

The door to his father’s study has been cracked open. Theon leans close to see who’s inside.

_No fucking way._

Jon Snow and Sansa Stark are lying on the couch, half-dressed, basking in what is clearly an afterglow. They’re _cuddling._ And the most amazing part is that _Snow_ is the little spoon.

Theon rubs his eyes, half-expecting the hallucination to disappear. But it doesn’t disappear. Instead, Sansa starts to sit up and mumbles, “We’re going to get caught.”

“No, stay here,” Jon says. He wraps an arm around her waist to drag her back down to the couch, and miraculously, Sansa _lets_ him. She nestles in next to him, legs tangled with his, arm clutching his chest, face pressed in the crook of his neck. They’re as close to each other as they can get. It’s as if they’d dissolve into each other like rain into the sea if they could.

“I really liked your costume,” Jon tells her.

“Then why’d you rip it?”

Theon has to hold in an honest-to-god gasp. Who knew- Sansa and Jon are secret freaks between the sheets.

“I missed you,” Jon confesses.

“It’s been _two days_ since we broke up. And _you_ broke up with _me_ ,” Sansa laughs. Then her tone becomes serious. “Is it still called a break-up if we weren’t dating?”

“You let me break up with you,” Jon says.

“Was I supposed to handcuff myself to you? I was respecting your decision.”

“You didn’t fight for me.”

Theon can’t contain himself a moment longer. He stumbles into the study and demands, “How long has this been going on?”

Jon and Sansa are up in a flash, cursing, recoiling, trying to find their clothes. “What the hell, Theon?” Sansa shouts. Then Jon has Theon by the collar of his stupid pirate costume. He slams Theon against the wall.

Damn, that really hurt.

“You’re not going to tell anyone about this.” Snow is actually growling. Theon has never seen him this angry before. “You’re not going to tell Robb, you’re not going to tell Arya, you’re not even going to tell your goddamned diary, not _anyone._ Understand?” When Theon doesn’t answer right away, Jon tightens his grip and slams Theon into the wall again. “ _Understand_ , Greyjoy?”

“I won’t tell anyone!”

With those words, it’s like Theon doesn’t exist anymore. Jon immediately releases him and turns around, seeking out, “Sansa?”

But the study is otherwise empty. Jon steps out into the hallway, calling out her name again. There’s no reply. Jon returns to the study, looking just a little devastated. “Did you see where she went?”

“No, you were too busy throttling me,” Theon says, massaging his neck. Jon sits down next to him on the floor and puts his head in his hands. Theon almost pities him. But then again, he’s had sex with Sansa Stark, and Theon hasn’t. So he doesn’t _really_ pity him.

“How long has it been going on?” he asks.

“Three months. How long were you listening?”

“Not long. You dumped her?”

“Well, we weren’t technically together-“

“Goddamnit, Snow, what’s wrong with you? You are _never_ going to do better than Sansa. She’s certified lean!”

“You don’t think I know that?” Jon scoffs. “I love her, and I know she doesn’t love me back. I’m just… I don’t know what I am for her. I couldn’t stand _almost_ having her. I thought it would be better if I just tried to move on, but… Well, you heard. I only lasted two days before I came crawling back.”

“So you told her how you feel?” Theon asks.

“No.”

“Then how do you know she doesn’t feel the same way?”

“Because she’s Sansa Stark and I’m _me_!”

Theon does see the logic of that. But he says, “She clearly likes you. What if you’re in love with her and she’s in love with you but both of you are too scared to say it so you’re both just walking around being miserable for no reason?”

“I can’t believe I’m taking relationship advice from Theon Greyjoy." Jon's laughter has a sharp edge to it.

“Well, I can’t believe you’re the little spoon.” Theon drags himself over to the couch and lays down. Snow will have to sort out of his love life himself. Theon is going to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear God, this was originally supposed to be a one-shot....


	8. Chapter 8

This time of year, night falls fast. Jon doesn’t even seen it coming- the gloom sneaks up behind him on silent feet and throws a dark hood over his head before he can realize what’s happening. One moment, the sunset is reminding him of Sansa’s hair, and the next moment, the television is the only source of light in the trailer.

Jon is currently despairing over every article of clothing that he owns, because what do you wear to make a declaration of love to the girl of your dreams? Throwing on jeans and a t-shirt doesn’t seem appropriate. 

He knows that Sansa will be wearing her grey and white Direwolves uniform- there’s a football game tonight. If Jon was as good as Sansa deserves, he’d manage to incorporate some kind of grand production into the halftime show when he tells her how he feels- a thousand roses, pyrotechnics, a song and dance number. Just like those romantic comedies Sansa loves so much. But Jon can’t afford a thousand roses, and pyrotechnics seem dangerous, and he’s never been able to sing. He’ll consider himself lucky if he just manages to stammer out his whole confession without humiliating himself too badly.

Jon’s gaze lands on the Targaryen jacket hanging in his closet. He should just throw the damn thing away; he has no intention of ever wearing it. Jon tosses it onto the kitchen counter, next to the trash. He can’t quite bring himself to get rid of it entirely. It’s a shame to waste such a nice leather jacket. Sansa is good with a needle and thread. Maybe she’ll know how to remove the insignia, if they’re still on speaking terms tomorrow.

Times like this, Jon wishes he had a normal father. Not Rhaegar. Someone like Ned Stark. Someone he could ask for advice about girls (though Jon supposes he could have never asked Ned about his own daughter).

Finally, Jon decides that it doesn’t really _matter_ what he wears, it’s not like Sansa’s answer will be contingent on the color of his sweater, when someone knocks at the door. Three curt raps.

He’s not expecting anyone.

Jon’s first thought it that Theon betrayed him. Greyjoy must’ve told Robb, and Robb drove to the trailer park in a blind fury, and now he’s standing outside, ready to avenge his sister’s honor and kick Jon’s ass to the moon. Truthfully, Jon’s been dreading this knock at the door ever since the Halloween party.

But why would Greyjoy wait until _now_ to tell Robb? It’s been two days. Maybe Jon should have a little faith in Theon. Maybe it’s not Robb on the other side of the door. Maybe it’s some salesman, or someone asking for directions, or one of those fanatics trying to convert him to the light of Rh’llor.

He opens the door, just a crack.

Then he immediately tries to close it again, but it’s too late. Jon doesn’t recognize the three men standing outside, but he doesn’t need to know their names to know that they’re trouble. One of them’s got his foot wedged in the gap, and the other slams his hand against the door, slowly pushing it open despite Jon’s resistance. Those two are thugs, but the man standing the middle isn’t physically intimidating. He can’t be much older than Jon, and he’s smiling like he’s selling something.

His eyes, though- they’re too wide, too bright, too blue. He looks like he stuck his finger in a socket and relished the jolt.

The man is a stranger, but when he speaks, Jon recognizes his voice. He would know it anywhere.

Ramsay Bolton says, “Hello. I hope we have the right address- you’re Jon Snow, correct?”

The goons take advantage of Jon’s shock to fully force their way into his home. The trailer as never seemed smaller as the three men advance and Jon retreats. His back hits a wall far too soon, and there’s nowhere to run. “What do you want?” Jon asks.

Ramsay’s tone isn’t menacing. He speaks as if he and Jon have been good friends for years, as if they’re close as brothers. But Ramsay killed his own brother, and dumped his body in the river.“A little bird told me that I have an admirer. A very curious peeping Tom. I know I’m very handsome but don’t you know that it’s rude to spy on people, Snow? I suppose your mother never got around to teaching you any manners.”

Jon can hear his mother’s voice, telling him to _never trust a Targaryen._ It must have been Rhaegar. Who else knows that Jon had been at the old mill that night? Who else knows that Jon had been asking questions about Ramsay?

“I think you should apologize,” Ramsay says. “It’s the right thing to do.”

He and his men have got Jon pinned, but they don’t take another step forward. They let Jon dangle on tiptoe with the noose around his neck. Ramsay is taking his sweet time, because Rhaegar was right about one thing- he’s _enjoying_ this. He’s like a kid holding a magnifying glass at just the right angle to order to burn ants alive.

With that same affable tone, like he’s discussing the weather, he continues. “Maybe I’ll go easier on you if you ask nicely.”

Jon laughs. “No, you won’t.”

“You’re right,” Ramsay admits. Then he lunges.

Jon’s been in fights before. There was always some kid who tried to make a crack about Lyanna or Rhaegar, and there were the arguments with Robb and Theon which could only be resolved by tussling in the dirt until someone said _uncle._ Jon had won more than he’d lost. But comparing those schoolyard scraps to _this_ \- it’s like comparing a prick from a needle to being run through with a sword.

No one could say he’d gone down without a fight- Jon gets a good swing in at Ramsay, and feels the satisfying crunch of what can only be a broken nose, but there’s only one of him against three of them. One lands a blow on the side of his head and another sinks a fist in his gut. Jon stumbles, and from there it must be easy to topple him to the floor.

The pain radiates. The blows seem to land _everywhere_ , each with devastating force. Jon can do nothing but lay there, and take it until he hears Ramsay say: “Find where he keeps his knives.”

Jon knows they won’t do anything as merciful as just slit his throat right here and now. He hasn’t suffered nearly enough yet They’ve only been making the meat more tender- now they’ll carve into him.

One of the goons moves through the kitchen, then abruptly stops. “Boss,” he says. “Look at this.”

The other thug speaks up. “Shit. _Shit._ I wouldn’t’ve signed up for this if I’d known he was a _member._ ”

“Rhaegar is his old man-“

“Shut up,” Ramsay commands. “The Targaryens can’t have claimed him. We would have heard about it.”

“They don’t give these jackets to just anyone!”

 _The goddamned jacket._ It’s agony when Jon smiles, but he does nonetheless. Rhaegar saved him after all.

Something in the kitchen shatters as Ramsay curses. Then he crouches down on the floor beside Jon and takes a tight hold of Jon’s hair. With a steady rhythm, like a hammer driving a nail, he smashes Jon’s head against the kitchen floor.

Jon has one last thought before everything turns from red to black: At least he’d never mentioned Sansa’s involvement in all this to Rhaegar. At least she was safe. 


	9. Chapter 9

_Can we talk?_

Sansa had tried countless iterations of the same sentiment- _I miss you, I need to see your voice, I need to hear your voice, I need to know if you’re mine_ \- all typed with nervous fingers before deciding on a message to send Jon that didn’t sound too sad or lonely or demanding. She’d sent it _hours_ ago, but every time she glances at her phone, there’s no answer.

Is Jon agonizing over what to say to her, the way she agonized over what to say to him? Or is the silence his reply?

After all, _he_ broke up with _her._ Not that they were ever technically together. Maybe what had happened at the party didn’t matter. They’d both been drunk, and she’d run, hadn’t she?

She’d come back later, though. After sunrise, after she’d slept and showered, Sansa drove back to Theon’s house. She brought coffee and doughnuts, and helped him clean up the ruin of his house. He’d been grateful, which had been Sansa’s intention all along. He couldn’t stab her in the back and tell anyone what he’d discovered if she’d brought him doughnuts and scrubbed his vomit, could he?

But now, in a perverse way, Sansa almost wishes Theon had told someone the secret. Then Jon would be forced to stop ignoring her.

Maybe she’ll find Jon later tonight. She has to go through the motions of the halftime cheerleading routine at the football game first. The whole thing’s hollow, of course- the Direwolves have been getting pummeled all night, and they’ll never be able to catch up to their opponents, no matter how much pep the cheerleaders inspire. But Sansa supposes it warms everyone’s hearts a little to pretend until the very end.

There’s three minutes left in the second quarter of the game, and the cheerleaders are waiting on the edge of the field when a cold hand grabs Sansa by the arm. Her heart lurches. She spins around and sees Arya is the owner of the iron grip.

“Don’t _scare_ me like that!” Sansa gasps.

Arya doesn’t let go; she drags Sansa toward the parking lot, away from the football field. “We have to go, right now.”

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s Jon.”

“He’s not-?” Sansa can’t even say it. If it weren’t for Arya’s hold on her, she would have fallen to the ground by now. All she can think of is that terrible night this summer when her mother had woken her up in the middle of the night and said, _It’s your father._

 _“No_ , God, no,” Arya reassures her. “But he’s hurt. Real bad. Somebody beat him up, apparently. Robb got a call from Elia Martell-“

“Rhaegar’s wife? Why? The Targaryens didn’t hurt Jon, did they?”

“No, the Targaryens found him. Apparently someone dropped him off half-dead in the Dragonstone parking lot. We’re heading there now. Robb left the car running.”

“Of course,” Sansa says. But a voice calls after them:

“Sansa, where are you going?”

It’s Myranda Royce. Of course. She stands on the edge of the flock of cheerleaders, staring at Sansa. Her smile gleams like a knife. “You can’t leave,” she says. “We’re about to go cheer.”

“It’s a family emergency,” Sansa says over her shoulder, still walking away. Arya nearly yanks Sansa’s arm out of the socket, muttering, “It doesn’t matter, come _on_.”

“You’ll get kicked off the squad!” Myranda shouts after her.

Sansa doesn’t even spare her a backwards glance, just calls out, “Okay, well, then I quit!”

***

Of course Sansa has heard the legends about Dragonstone- that plenty of men have crossed its threshold and never come back, that if you were to search through the dust in the corners of every room, you’d find human teeth and old bullet casings, that in the very far back, they keep all kind of venomous snakes. Supposedly the creatures will sink their fangs into the flesh of anyone who doesn’t have Targaryen blood running through their veins. Sansa has heard plenty about Dragonstone. She’s just never been there before.

Her first look at the place is distorted by the tears in her eyes. Sansa hasn’t been able to stop crying, could barely catch her breath the entire ride to Dragonstone. Arya and Robb weren’t a comfort- Arya had just told her to _stop acting like such a girl._ Now, standing in the Dragonstone parking lot, looking at the menacing red glow of the place, Sansa knows she should follow her sister’s advice. She swipes at her eyes and takes several shuddering breaths of the bracing November air.

A man guards the door. Sansa actually finds his tattoo more unnerving than his brawny stature or the gun at his hip- a fire-breathing dragon is inked into his shaved skull, the flames extending down his face onto his pockmarked cheek. As they approach, he says, “You’ve come to the wrong place.”

“We’re here to talk to Rhaegar Targaryen,” Robb says, with all the subtlety of a battering ram.

“He doesn’t want to talk to you. Now, run home to mommy and daddy before bedtime.”

Sansa would intervene and try to sweet-talk their way in, but Arya takes advantage of the bouncer’s distraction to duck under the bouncer’s arm and slip inside the bar. Robb replies to the bouncer, probably saying something obtuse, but Sansa doesn’t listen- she has to follow Arya, to look after her. So she darts past the bouncer and is suddenly in Dragonstone.

Despite her short and skinny frame, Arya actually blends in better than Sansa does. Her sister could pass for a teenage boy, but the moment Sansa steps inside the bar, it feels like every eye is on her, taking in her long bright hair, her tear-smudged eyes, her short uniform skirt. She instantly wants to step back out to the cool secrecy of the night, but Robb is still arguing with the bouncer behind her, and the only way to get to Jon is to go deeper into Dragonstone.

So she steps forward.

Someone in the bar, Sansa can’t tell who, rumbles, “Are those Ned Stark’s girls?”

“Yes,” Arya says before Sansa can stop her. “I want to see Jon Snow. I know he’s here.“

“Arya, _shut up_ ,” Sansa hisses, but it’s too late. One man slides off his bar stool and walks up to Arya. He’s got the classic Targaryen looks- face like an angel and smile like the devil- and he towers over Arya. Of course, Sansa knows by now not to bet against her sister in a fight, no matter what the odds, but she’d rather it not come to that.

“You’re Starks,” the man says. “So you’re the reason Jon nearly got killed in the first place.”

Arya immediately explodes that _it wasn’t their fault._ Sansa inspects the man’s face more closely, and discovers that he’s not quite a man after all. He’s barely older than she is. “You’re Aegon Targaryen,” she realizes aloud. 

In the brief moment before his expression slips into a guarded scowl, the boy’s face flashes surprise, and Sansa knows she’s right. “Aegon, we’re not here for a fight,” she explains. “We just want to see if Jon’s all right. Your mother called and asked us to come.”

“She did?” Aegon questions. Sansa can _see_ him struggling to decide whether or not to humor her or simply have them thrown out, but he doesn’t have the opportunity to decide, because a voice rings out from above:

“The Stark girl isn’t lying.”

Sansa follows the sound to the far end of the bar. Standing at the top of the stairs is a man who can only be Jon’s father.

Rhaegar doesn’t need to raise his voice to be heard; everyone in the bar freezes when they see him. He walks unhurriedly, as if the entire world will wait for him. Sansa supposes that the whole world usually does. When he reaches her, Arya, and Aegon, his smile is too good to be true. Sansa can’t imagine anyone less like Jon.

Rhaegar calls out to the bouncer, “Let the poor kid go!” Robb is then half-thrown into the bar.He stumbles into line beside Sansa and Arya, and immediately says, “I need to see-“

“Me?” Rhaegar says. He looks at each of them, his expression a cipher Sansa can’t solve. Finally, he muses, “I never thought I’d see a Stark step foot in here. Let alone three of them.”

“They don’t belong here,” Aegon interjects. “Just…remove them.” He says this as if Sansa and her siblings were nothing more than chess pieces, to be advanced or sacrificed solely because it suited a Targaryen.

“If it were up to me, I would,” Rhaegar says. “But it’s not. Well, if you want to see Jon, come with me.”

***

They follow Rhaegar through the night, to a house only a few blocks away from Dragonstone. Even obscured as it is by the dark, Sansa is shocked by how sinisterly _normal_ it looks. Below a tree with a tire swing, fallen leaves have been raked into a tidy pile. Each porch step has a jack-o-lantern with a unique face. A welcome mat bears the faded message: _home sweet home._

Rhaegar knocks at the front door, which is painted a brilliant shade of red. A girl cracks it open, but doesn’t undo the chain when she sees who’s standing outside. “Why have you brought _them_ here?”

Arya elbows her way in front of Rhaegar and shouts into the house, “Jon! Jon! Are you in there? We’re here to rescue you!”

Sansa grabs Arya by the collar and yanks her back as a dark-haired woman inside the house walks toward the front door and scolds, “Rhaenys, you’re letting the cold air in.” The woman undoes the chain and opens the red door wide. “Hello. I’m so glad you’re here. I’m Elia, and you’ve just met my daughter, Rhaenys.”

Rhaenys grudgingly steps aside to let the Starks pass. The interior of the house is just as traditional as the exterior. Sansa’s telling the truth when she says, “You have a lovely home. Thank you so much for letting us come. We’ve been worried sick since you called. I’m Sansa, and that’s Arya and Robb.”

“Well, I had to notify you. After all, Jon was concerned about all of you, during the brief periods he was awake. He wasn’t exactly lucid, but he was quite vocal. Especially about you, Sansa. He kept insisting we had to make sure you were safe,” Elia says.

Sansa blushes, and fixes her gaze on a landscape painting hanging on the wall to avoid looking at Arya or Robb. But they’re distracted with questions about Jon: _how badly is he hurt, what exactly happened, is he awake, where is he?_

“We put him in a spare bedroom.” Elia leads them upstairs and quietly opens a bedroom door. She whispers, “He’s sleeping now.”

She doesn’t turn on a light, but the moonlight is enough to illuminate how Jon’s lip is split, and his face is black and blue. “Oh my god,” Sansa breathes. Jon stirs slightly, then settles back in the bed. Sansa can’t tear her eyes away from the slight, but steady, rise and fall of his chest. _He’s alive._ She realizes she hadn’t quite believed it until she saw proof.

Elia murmurs something about letting Jon get his rest, shuts the door again, and ushers them downstairs to the kitchen. They all get as settled as they can- Rhaenys perches on the countertop, Elia busies herself putting on the kettle to make some tea, Rhaegar leans against the door, checking the window for anyone walking up the path toward the house. Robb and Arya stand together in the farthest corner they can from the Targaryens, but Sansa finds herself clutching the corner of the counter, needing something solid to hold onto.

Robb speaks first. “Why didn’t you bring him to the hospital?”

“It’s not how we usually deal with… these kind of things,” Rhaenys answers. “Mom’s as good as any doctor at stitching people up.”

“He needed stitches?” Sansa asks.

“Yes, he has a cut over his eye, not too deep, but head wounds bleed so profusely. Almost every inch of his body is bruised, and I think he might have some cracked ribs, but there’s nothing we can really do about that. They’ll mend on their own eventually. He was lucky, in a way. He just needs to take it easy for a month, then he’ll be right as rain.”

Rhaenys scoffs at her mother. “He wasn’t lucky. When they left him in the parking lot, they also left the jacket Dad gave him. Whoever it was that beat him, the only reason they didn’t kill him is because they fear Targaryen retaliation.”

“What jacket?”

“He came to see me about someone named Ramsay, in connection to your _investigation._ I gave him a Targaryen jacket before he left. Told him to reconsider joining,” Rhaegar explains. “It was Ramsay who did this to him, yes?”

“Ramsay Bolton,” Sansa confirms. “It must have been.”

“Wait, Ramsay _Bolton_? Related to Roose?”

Sansa conveys all that she knows about the Bolton family’s secrets, and how she came by such knowledge. “This is my all fault. It was so stupid of me to go to Baelish. I should’ve known he can’t be trusted.”

“Sansa, what are you talking about?” Robb asks.

“After we saw what Ramsay did at the old mill, Jon and I… grabbed something to eat at a diner nearby, and Baelish saw us. But what was Petyr Baelish doing at Dreadfort, that close to the old mill, at nearly midnight? He’s in on it. He’s conspiring with the Boltons and the Freys. He used to work with Dad. He probably betrayed him, I don’t know, to get Dad out of the way and marry Mum, or something. He’s been in love with her since they were teenagers. Of course, when he saw Jon and I at the diner, and then I went to him the next day for information about Ramsay, Baelish must have put two and two together and realized we were close to uncovering the truth. Of course, he wants to stay on Mum’s good side, so he’s not going to sic Ramsay on any of us, but Jon… Jon was an easy target.”

“Can you prove any of this?”

“No, but it makes sense. It’s the missing piece. Everything adds up now.”

Rhaegar suddenly slams a flat hand against the wall in anger. The noise makes Sansa flinch. All traces of his former warmth vanish. The anger seems to radiate from his body; Sansa can almost see it in the air, like smoke. “I _told_ him not to go provoking Ramsay, I _told_ him to leave the Boltons be. I knew he was in over his head.”

“Why can’t you Starks do your own dirty work?” Rhaenys half-snarls. “Why’d you have to drag my brother into this?”

“We didn’t _drag_ Jon into anything,” Arya retorts. “We wouldn’t do that. Jon wanted to help us. He’s- he’s a good person.”

“Being a good person nearly got him killed,” Rhaenys says. She slides off the counter onto her feet, and Sansa can’t help but notice that Arya is inching closer and closer to the set of knives on the butcher block. She’s about to step between the two of them when the kettle whistles and Elia announces, “Tea’s ready!”

While she pours everyone a cup, Rhaegar rifles through the cabinets and produces a bottle of amber liquor. He adds more than a splash to his own mug, and when he’s done, Robb speaks up. “Could I have some of that? Please?”

Rhaegar passes Robb the bottle. Of course Arya tries to echo her brother, but Sansa objects. “Arya, you’re fifteen.”

“I was drinking at the party-“

“That’s _enough,_ I don’t want to hear it.”

“You sound just like Mum.”

Elia clears her throat. She surveys the room, and smiles like this is some lovely gathering which she’s been planning for a long time. “I always find that tea makes everything better,” she says. Oddly enough, she’s right. They’d all been at each other’s throats a minute before, but now they’ve settled into a relative peace. Off in his corner, Rhaegar is brooding (Sansa can see where Jon gets it from, now), Rhaenys and Arya have retracted their claws, and Robb is downing and refilling his drink like there’s no tomorrow, but at least he’s being civil.

“So what are we going to do?” Rhaenys asks eventually.

“I’m going to kill them. I’m going to kill the Boltons for what they did to Jon,” Arya vows in a voice Sansa’s heard before. When Arya was six, she said she was going to chop the hair off all of her dolls, and she did just that. When Arya was eleven, she said she was going to run away from home and live in the treehouse out back. It took their father three days to coax her down. Just last year, Mum had tried to forbid Arya from dating Gendry Waters, and Arya had fought back with the same steel in her words, the same look in her eye as she has now. Gendry and Arya celebrated their one-year anniversary over the summer.

“Nobody is killing anybody,” Sansa says.

“So what, are we supposed to just let them get away with what they did to Jon? With what they did to Domeric Bolton? With what they did to _Dad_?”

Robb says, “You could help us. We can’t do this on our own, but if the Targaryens committed to bringing down Roose Bolton, well… he wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“Why should we do that?” Rhaegar asks.

“Because they nearly killed your son. And because Roose Bolton is hungry for power- do you really think he’ll just leave you alone if he’s elected mayor? He, and Baelish, and the Freys won’t stop until they control everything in Winterfell. The good and the bad.”

Rhaegar steps out from the shadows, but the harsh light from above only throws his features into sharp relief. His eyes are deep wells, the lines of his face more pronounced. He’s not nearly as handsome in the chiaroscuro. “I have a proposition. When Jon wakes, I’ll tell him that I’ll go against Roose Bolton… if he joins the Targaryens.”

Robb nods, and holds out a hand for Rhaegar to shake.

Sansa grabs her brother by the arm. “Robb, what are you _doing_?”

“I’m making a deal-”

“It’s not your decision-“

“Exactly, it’s Jon’s-”

“But you know he’ll say yes! You know he will! He’s a _good person_ , and he’ll do whatever it takes, even if he hates every second of it, even if it really does kill him! The last thing Jon wants to do is join the Targaryens.” Sansa faces Rhaegar and pleads, “Don’t ask this of Jon. If you’re going to stand against the Boltons, do it because they hurt your son, not because they hurt a member of your gang. Please.”

“She’s right, Dad,” Rhaenys murmurs. “Jon’s family. Doesn’t matter if he chooses to wear the jacket or not.”

“I won’t have teenage girls telling me what to do,” Rhaegar spits. He strides out of the kitchen, out into the night, slamming the door so hard that the whole house shakes. Sansa presses her hands against her eyes. She’s started to cry, again.

Elia remains serene about all that’s just happened. “He’ll come back,” she promises. “He’ll come back and pretend this whole argument never happened, act like the idea was his from the very start. Give it an hour. He sees the logic of what you’re saying, he just doesn’t want to admit that he’s wrong.”

The kitchen becomes quiet once more. The tea’s gone cold by the time Jon wakes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the thing about writing is that sometimes something looks really simple in the outline, & then executing it is... not so simple. Which is basically my way of saying that the chapter count has gone up again. 
> 
> anyway, after this is done, I have a one shot that I am ***incredibly*** excited to write. 
> 
> happy halloween xx


	10. Chapter 10

In Jon’s dream, his mother is running late- she’s got one hand on the door knob, ready to flee, and the other hand holds her car keys, which she shakes impatiently. She looks at Jon the way a wild animal looks at a steel trap it’s just stepped in.

Jon is seven. He’s still wearing his pajamas, and is clutching his favorite stuffed animal, a dingy white wolf named Ghost. “I don’t feel good.”

Lyanna presses a cool hand to his forehead and frowns. “Goddamnit. Okay. You need to get back in bed and take it easy, Jon. I can’t stay here and watch over you today because it’s too late to call out from work, but Ghost will keep you safe, all right? Watch cartoons and drink some orange juice. I love you. Bye.”

Jon does as his mother tells him, but he doesn’t feel any better. His whole body aches, and the television is too loud. He doesn’t know how much time passes, but eventually Ned Stark is standing over his bed. He seems ten feet tall. He picks Jon up, carries him to a different bed, a different room, a different house. Only Ghost, tucked in the crook of Jon’s elbow, stays the same. Catelyn Stark spoon feeds him medicine, makes him a bowl of chicken noodle soup, doesn’t even scold him when he’s sick, just helps clean his face and gets fresh sheets. Jon can’t figure out why she’s being so nice to him until he overhears her talking with Ned in the hallway outside the bedroom.

“She left him alone in this condition?” Catelyn whispers.

“You know how hard it is for her. She had to work,” Ned replies.

“It’s negligent. He’s so young.”

“So is she.”

He must fall asleep again, because he wakes up to find Sansa Stark sitting next to his bed, a picture book in her lap. He blinks in surprise- usually she doesn’t want anything to do with him.

“Are you going to die?” Sansa asks him.

“I don’t think so.”

“Do you want me to read to you? I can sound out the words.”

Jon nods, so Sansa sounds out the words to a familiar fairy tale and promises a happy ending. Jon wishes he was sick all the time, so that everyone was always so nice to him.

***

Jon wakes up, for real this time, in a dark room, and can’t decide if he’s landed in heaven or hell. Surely heaven wouldn’t hurt this much. But the bed wouldn’t be so comfortable in hell. Then he remembers- Ramsay slamming his head onto the kitchen floor. The flickering red neon light of Dragstone. The Targaryens. His blood.

“Elia?” he calls out into the darkness.

Jon is more used to people leaving than coming back, but Elia does. She brings light into the dark room, she brings painkillers with tea to wash it down, and she brings the Starks. Robb, cracking jokes about how Jon won’t be winning any beauty pageants any time soon, and Arya, talking about how she got past the Dragonstone bouncer, she really did, and-

“Where’s Sansa?” Jon rasps.

“Oh, yeah,” Robb says. “Sansa, get over here!” He turns around to beckon his sister, revealing her to be in the corner of the room, hiding behind Elia and Rhaenys.

Arya scoffs, “Sansa, you cry the whole damn ride here, but you don’t care when Jon wakes up?”

Sansa’s got long legs; she crosses the room in no time at all, and Jon’s ready to catch her when she nearly collapses onto the bed. One hand twines into Jon’s hair, the other cups his jaw, his hands are splayed across her back and one holds her by the waist, and she kisses him. Or he kisses her. Or they meet somewhere in the middle. The kiss hurts, tastes like his blood and her tears. Eventually Jon pulls back, sits up, wheezes, “Sansa, you’re crushing me.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, releasing him, but not a moment later she moves to sit on the corner of the bed and wraps one arm across his shoulders and lays the other across his chest, rests her head in the crook of his neck. “Is this okay?”

“Never been better.”

“I’m so sorry,” she says again, and there’s a thousand cruelties she could be apologizing for. For leaving the night of Theon’s party. For letting go on his hand at the diner. For only being kind to him when she thought he was dying. For the stupid goddamned list of rules.

But Jon has a thousand more reasons to forgive her, so he says, “It’s fine, Sansa. We’re fine.” Then it occurs to him that they might not be. “Ramsay. It was Ramsay, he’s still out there, he might try to hurt you…”

“No, he won’t,” Sansa reassures him. “I figured out the missing piece.”

She explains Baelish’s betrayal to him, and waits for his reaction. “Jon. You’re looking at me weird again. I know I look like a mess, but-”

“No, you look perfect. Just- god, you’re so smart.” Jon leans in to kiss her again, because every moment spent _not_ kissing her seems like an egregious waste, but then someone makes a sound like a cat coughing up a hairball. He and Sansa look up at the source of the sound- Arya.

Right. Arya and Robb. Jon had almost forgotten they were there.

“Stop ravishing each other!” Arya says, aghast. “This is disgusting.”

“I was _not_ expecting Jon to be dating the cheerleader,” Rhaenys says.

“Yeah, we’re, um, are we-” Jon looks at Sansa.

She smoothly says, “We’re dating. We’ve been secretly dating.”

Jon smiles, then winces. His split lip really does hurt.

“How long has this been going on?” Arya demands.

“Three months.”

“Are you crazy? Are you on drugs? I’m serious. Oh my god- did Sansa get pregnant and now you’re forced to stick together because of the baby? Are you pregnant and on drugs? Because that’s not good for the fetus.”

Robb seems to have partially recovered the power of verbal communication. “Sansa, you… and Jon. You and Jon. Jon and you. Jon and Sansa. Sansa and Jon.”

“I think he’s short-circuiting,” Rhaenys says.

“You know what will help?” Elia suggests. “More tea. Why don’t we go downstairs and make another pot?”

Everyone moves out of the bedroom- even Sansa rises from the bed. Jon grabs her by the hand, holds her back. “You’re really going?”

“I’ll be back soon. There’s something I have to take care of.” She swoops down to kiss him, but just stares at his face instead. “The bastard really got you, didn’t he?”

“Yeah. But at least Robb can’t kick my ass now.”

Sansa laughs, and Jon quickly kisses her knuckles before letting her go. The moment she leaves the room, it’s like all the agony of the beating, the bruises and the broken ribs, return worse than ever. Jon sinks back into the bed and sighs.

He hears the front door slam. Elia had cracked open the bedroom window earlier to give Jon some fresh air, and now as everyone apparently loiters on the front porch, Jon can hear their voices.

“We should be heading home,” Robb says. “Mum will be getting worried.”

Sansa speaks up. “Well, actually, Ms. Targaryen- if it wouldn’t be too much of an imposition, I was wondering if I could stay the night?”

“It’s no trouble. You can borrow pajamas from Rhaenys-”

“Mum!”

“Sansa, you’re insane if you think I’m leaving you here all night,” Robb says in what Jon recognizes as the voice he adopts when he’s trying to be authoritative. The voice never works.

“You’re insane if you think you control what I do,” Sansa retorts.

Arya interjects, “Let her stay. I need some distance to process the whole…”

“Fine, then I’ll be here _first thing_ in the morning, and we’re going to have a very long, serious talk about-”

Sansa tells Robb to shut up, then says good-bye. Rhaenys is instructed to escort Robb and Arya back to Dragonstone, and only reacts with mild complaining. Jon then expects Sansa to go back in the house, to come back upstairs, but instead she lingers outside.

Someone new speaks. “So you’re the girl my son is so infatuated with.”

Jon should have known that Rhaegar would be lurking somewhere. He wants to run downstairs, to throw Sansa over his shoulder and take her someplace where the nights aren’t so long and the days aren’t so cold and there are no Boltons or Targaryens. But he can’t even get out of bed, and if there was some kind of paradise like the one he imagines, Jon wouldn’t be allowed in, would he? He was half dragon, after all.

Rhaegar continues, “He always had the biggest crush on you.”

“Who?” Sansa asks.

“Jon, of course.”

“Would he talk about me?”

“No. Never said a word. That’s how I knew, of course. It was fun to needle him about it. He completely lost his cool whenever I mentioned you. One time, we were eating at some Dornish restaurant and I asked him, _Jon, do you think redheaded girls are the prettiest kind of girls?_ And he started choking on his food. Literally. I had to do the Heimlich maneuver. He would have died if I hadn’t been there.”

Listening to this story, Jon is torn between killing his father and killing himself.

“Elia doesn’t let me smoke in the house. So I’m banished to the porch,” Rhaegar says. “Might not seem like it, but she rules the roost around here. Smiles, speaks softly, offers everybody tea, and gets everything she wants in the end. If she weren’t such a good person, she’d be a helluva villain, you know? Of course you know. You’re the same way.”

“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or an insult, Mr. Targaryen.”

“Jon’s a good kid. Don’t break his heart.”

“Don’t you break his heart either,” Sansa replies. “I know Lyanna didn’t want him to join the Targaryens. I’m sure you know it too. So why do you keep asking him? Why can’t you just leave him be?”

It’s a long while before Rhaegar answers. “Your brother had a point. If Roose gets elected, he’ll come after us. Sooner or later.”

“It’s certainly something to think about.”

“I’m not making any promises.”

“I know that. I won’t hold you to any promises. We’re just talking.”

“Just talking,” Rhaegar scoffs. “That’s what Elia says too. Goddamnit. You two are cut from the same cloth.”

“Good night, Mr. Targaryen.”

“Good night, Miss Stark.”


	11. Chapter 11

Elia at least attempts the pretense of putting Sansa in the den downstairs, and Sansa supposes it’s her duty as houseguest to comply with the charade. She listens to the tell-tale sounds of the house tossing, turning, then settling to sleep with a quiet yawn. When the last lights wink out, she creeps up the stairs in her socks and stays close to the walls to stop the floorboards from creaking.

Jon is waiting for her.

***

Sansa is monochrome in the moonlight, silver and sere. If it weren’t for her cheerleading uniform, she would look like a phantom from another era. Either way, Jon’s afraid she’ll turn to mist when he tries to touch her, because surely this can’t be real. Nothing this good has ever happened to him before.

There are rusty streaks on the fabric of her uniform, which Jon realizes must be his blood from earlier, when she embraced him. It’s a disconcerting to see that much of his own blood. The dire wolf stitched on her chest looks like it’s just caught a fresh kill. “Sorry I ruined your uniform,” Jon mumbles.

Sansa looks down at herself. “It’s fine, I didn’t even notice. Want to move over?”

Jon is happy to oblige. It’s a wide bed, but when Sansa settles down beside him, she gets as close as she can. They lay down side by side, face to face. “The uniform really doesn’t matter anymore. I quit cheerleading,” Sansa confesses.

“Really? Does that mean _you’re_ going to get jumped now?”

“Don’t even joke about that. Margaery will be mad at first, but she’ll survive.”

“It’s a shame. I kind of like that uniform.”

“You’re lying.”

“No, I do. I like, the, um… the wolf bit.”

“Aw, that’s just a polite way of saying you like how my tits look in this sweater, Jon Snow.”

“Maybe,” Jon admits, and Sansa has swallow back her laughter so she won’t wake the whole house. But the happiness vanishes quickly as a message written in the sand too close to the water- a wave of regret swallows it whole. Sansa gazes at him a long time without saying anything, and Jon’s reminded of how she’s always asking him, _why are you looking at me like that?_

She reaches out traces his cuts and bruises, feather-light. “How are you feeling?”

“Not too bad.”

“Jon, you could have been _killed_.”

“I’m not trying to play tough. I have no idea what’s in those pills Elia gave me, but I can’t really feel anything right now.”

Sansa arches an eyebrow, and her smile is a challenge. “Really? You can’t feel _anything_?” She suddenly leans over and kisses him. She’s learned her lesson, and braces herself on either side of his head so there’s no weight on him, but otherwise, nothing about the kiss could be described as _careful._ Her hair falls in a curtain around them, and the whole world is reduced to her scent, her skin, her lips. She pulls back, leaves him gasping, but is still close enough that Jon can _feel_ the shape of her wicked grin as she asks, “Still don’t feel anything?”

His only answer is another kiss, one hand woven into her hair, another sliding down her back. She shifts to part her knees, and something at the end of the bed falls to the floor.

Sansa pulls back, and Jon wishes he could just hold her. But he can’t keep Sansa from moving to the edge of the bed to investigate, to pick up whatever it was that fell, in the way same that he can’t keep water from slipping through his fingers, no matter how hard he tries.

“Jon, why do you have a Targaryen jacket?” Sansa asks warily.

“I don’t know, when you were downstairs with Elia, Rhaegar came in and put it at the end of the bed. Didn’t say a word. That part was a goddamned miracle.”

“But he promised-” Sansa starts to say before she catches herself.

“Don’t keep secrets,” Jon says.

“I’m not keeping secrets,” she tells him, and he knows it’s a lie. He heard her conversation with his father on the porch. Jon knows Rhaegar never said he’d stop asking him to join- he knows his father will _never_ stop asking him to join, not until the day when he finally does put on that jacket. And he knows Sansa never said that she wouldn’t break his heart. He doesn’t care about either.

“Please, just come back here.” Jon doesn’t beg- not quite. Sansa turns, looks at him over her shoulder.

“Are you going to join?” she asks.

“No.”

“So give Rhaegar his fucking jacket back.”

“I don’t want to burn that bridge just yet, Sansa. That jacket saved my life. And I never expected Elia, or Rhaenys, or Aegon to take me in like they have. They’re risking their necks for me. Maybe they _are_ my family, in their own way.”

She does come back to his waiting arms this time, buries her face in his neck. Jon realizes she’s crying again. He runs a hand through her hair, gently this time, as she says, “ _I’m_ your family. Arya’s your family, Robb’s your family. Aren’t we enough?”

“I can protect you better if I’m a Targaryen,” he says. He’s envisioned it- the Freys, the Boltons, Baelish. No one will be able to touch her then.

“I don’t need your protection, Jon Snow. So stop trying.”

“Too late.”

***

Sansa knows this fight isn’t over- far from it. She’s begun to realize there will always be something unsaid, something to fight about. But the bed is soft, and Jon’s body is so warm against hers, and she can’t think of a proper plan to stop Jon from ruining his life if she’s not well rested, can she? “We’ll deal with it,” she murmurs. “The Freys. Roose, Ramsay. Baelish. Your father. It’ll all be okay in the end. We’ll just… we’ll deal with it in the morning.”

“Will you be here in the morning?” he asks her.

Sansa twists around to look him in the eye. In the dark, it’s like looking down the bottom of well. “Yes, I will be here in the morning. I promise, and I don’t break my promises. You won’t be waking up to a cold bed.”

“You’re breaking the fourth rule.”

“I only wrote those stupid rules because-”

“Because you didn’t want to be seen with me.”

“No! No, that’s not true, don’t think that. Don’t you dare think that, Jon. No, I was going to say that I only wrote them because I thought- I don’t know, I thought they would be able to stop me from falling for you.”

“Did they work?”

“Obviously not. No rules would have worked.”

“Oh, I’m that irresistible, am I?”

“Yes, you are, so stop acting so sad all the time. And don’t go joining a gang to improve your self-esteem.”

Jon grumbles at that, but Sansa chooses to concentrate on the rumble in his chest, the warmth of him, the steady beat of his heart. _He’s alive. He’s safe. Everything will be okay in the end._ And until then, she’ll make the most of this brief armistice- no tears, no lies, no secrets, no angry words. She’ll rest, and see Jon in her dreams, and wake up in his arms in the morning.

The last thing she hears Jon murmur before she falls asleep is: “We were terrible friends with benefits, weren’t we?”

“Oh, Jon,” she says. “We were never friends.”


End file.
